


With You

by resonae



Category: The Avengers (2012)
Genre: Character Death, M/M, Suicide
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-22
Updated: 2013-02-22
Packaged: 2017-12-03 05:15:20
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/694565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/resonae/pseuds/resonae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Natasha has seen him broken before, and she’d always picked up the pieces and held them together, taped them the best she could even if the pieces cut her. Phil had always helped her, and every time Clint would come out a little smaller, a little more fragile, a little more prone to another break, but he’d be back with his stupid jokes and attractive smirks and flirtatious laughter.</p>
            </blockquote>





	With You

**Author's Note:**

> For anon’s prompt,
> 
> Just saw your story “Let me go now” and, my god, that was beautiful and so heartbreaking :’( I wonder what would have been Clint’s reaction if Tony was the one who got killed.

Clint is shattered.

 

Natasha has seen him broken before, and she’d always picked up the pieces and held them together, taped them the best she could even if the pieces cut her. Phil had always helped her, and every time Clint would come out a little smaller, a little more fragile, a little more prone to another break, but he’d be back with his stupid jokes and attractive smirks and flirtatious laughter.

 

This time, no matter how she tries, she can’t put him back. He stares blankly at her, crying silent tears she can’t stop, and she can’t even pick up the pieces because they’ve shattered into infinitesimal pieces. It scares her because she doesn’t even have anyone to help her anymore, not Phil or even Tony.

 

Because they’re both dead, and that’s what shattered Clint. First the unfixable chip from Phil, and then the shattering from Tony.

 

Sometimes she finds Clint tucked up against Steve’s strong chest, with Steve holding him tight to him. Or sometimes she finds Clint curled up on Thor’s lap, with Thor protectively looming over him. Or sometimes she finds Clint hovering awkwardly by Bruce’s side in his lab until Bruce tugs him toward the little cot and they curl up together.

 

Most of the times, she finds Clint on Tony’s bed, having silently cried himself to unconsciousness.

 

Even worse, Clint doesn’t touch his bow. It was better when Clint would deal with himself by shooting his arms and fingers raw, because then she could steal his bows and arrows and hide them. But he won’t even look at the bow that Tony made for him. Even mentioning that range makes him shudder.

 

That’s the problem, Natasha thinks. Tony gave Clint everything. Gave him the range, gave him the bow, gave him new arrows. Gave him a place to call home, gave him a new life, gave him _love_. And when Tony died, he took Clint’s entire world with him.

 

She wants to tell him to move on, that people die, but she can’t. Steve had once tried telling him, “Tony wouldn’t want you to be like this.”

 

Clint had answered, “Tony didn’t want to be dead. He loved life.” And they had nothing to say to that because - well, it was true. But Tony also would hate that Clint is wasting away. He’d get that frown on his face when Clint is doing something to risk his life, or when he’s hurt, and he would cross his arms across his chest. When she tells Clint this, Clint only cries.

 

One day, she finds Clint curled up around his StarkPad. It’s glowing in a way that’s sickeningly identical to the way Tony’s arc reactor glows. Clint looks haunted, and Natasha runs to the bathroom and vomits out everything she’s eaten that day. She can’t get Clint’s look out of her head.

 

Clint won’t eat, move, or even drink water. He stays limp and unresponsive at everything and anything the Avengers do, and won’t even react to Steve’s patient coaxing that last hours.

 

It gets the worst when Natasha comes into Clint’s room one day and Clint has cut his wrists so deep she can see the whites of his bones and the navy sheets on Tony’s bed are dripping blood. She screams louder than she’s ever done before. Bruce and Steve come running, and Bruce takes control of the situation immediately.

 

When Clint wakes up again, he tries and tries again until they take turns watching constantly over him. “Stop this.” Natasha tells him one day. “Stop it!” She yells and slaps and punches him until Thor gently pulls her away. She doesn’t understand – can’t understand. She’s never loved someone so much that the lack of their presence made her want to die.

 

She’s not used to Clint being so weak, so helpless and so lacking life. She wants to kill Tony for doing this to him, to them, but instead she curls up in her bed and cries for the first time she’s done in a while.

 

It’s not surprising, really, when a few days later they find Clint in the bathtub, his wrists sank in cold water that’s blood red. It’s Steve who gathers him up, empties the tub and carefully wipes the rest of the blood away. None of them speak. Natasha can’t even think.

 

\--

 

“He’s in a better place.” Bruce tells Natasha at the funeral. Natasha doesn’t believe in the afterlife.

 

But she looks up at the sky anyway. It’s chillingly blue, without a cloud. “Yeah.” She says, and she means it. “He’s with Tony.” 


End file.
